Letter: Will we learn from the storm?

With so much focus by the media right now on the elections – and in the past few days, the focus of us all on the storm – let’s see if this is actually a moment when we’ll seriously contemplate two key issues that have been swirling around us: the proper role of government and whether climate change is real.

The first issue has been discussed endlessly by candidates, but the second issue, although swirling, has been discussed not at all.

Here is a quote from Bill McKibben: “It’s really important that everybody, even those who aren’t in the path of this storm, reflect about what it means that in the warmest year in U.S. history, … in a year when we saw, essentially, summer sea ice in the Arctic vanish before our eyes, what it means that we’re now seeing storms of this unprecedented magnitude. If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it.”

Here are the key questions on my mind. Is America a nation that bases its decisions at least in part on data – short-term as well as long-term? And then, do we really believe in the role that government has to play in protecting the common good ?

Let’s see what the storm has to teach us. By the way, the insurance industry is way ahead of us.